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“Is anyone home there? I knocked and there was no answer.”
             “My mother is there now. She just got back from shopping. She’s very pretty. Would you like to marry her?”
             Sam laughed. “No, thank you. I’m already married. I would like to meet her, though. There is some business to talk about.”
             “Then hold my hand,” she commanded, but he shook his head.
             This didn’t seem right, encouraging a little girl to hold a stranger’s hand. “I can’t do that. I’ll just follow,” he said. She frowned, then shrugged as though it was his loss. He sighed and held out his little finger. His big sister Sarapon used to do that. She would walk him to market where she bought fish caught in Tonle Sap and dried on racks. They would share an orange soda that she bought from a vendor on the cyclopousse, and then they would walk home, his small hand clasped firmly on her little finger.
             Sopheary took his finger and smiled. At least she didn’t cry. “I found a foot on the step,” she said. “Do you want to see it?” She pointed to the cement stoop that led up to her porch, where a work boot had made an impression on one of the stairs. “I wish I could do that,” she said.
             “The cement has to be wet,” Sam said. “And then people will get mad at you if you step in it.”
             “Did they get mad at him?”
             Sam ignored the question. Sopheary’s mother came to the door as her daughter and Sam approached. Sam showed his badge and introduced himself in Khmer. “I worry about your daughter approaching strangers,” he said. “A man died here last night.”
             “My name is Li Chang,” the mother said. “My landlord is dead. Yes, I saw the ambulance leaving when I came home from work last night.” The words struck Sam as flat, but compassion filled Li Chang’s eyes, and Sam had difficulty taking his eyes off her. The girl was right: Her mother was pretty.
             Li Chang’s eyes were wide and brown, intelligent and aware. Her look said she would slice anyone who messed with Pheary, and Sam sensed deep emotional hurt behind those eyes--but who didn’t hurt somehow? She had delicate arms and long fingers, the kind an apsara might have. Gold bracelets jangled as she motioned for him to come in. Costume jewelry, Sam assumed, just like the jade earrings. Li Chang sat down slowly on her living room couch and put a hand on her forehead. “Please sit down, sir,” she said in Khmer, but Sam remained on his feet.
             On the wall opposite the television were multicolored paper flowers like the ones his sister used to make in Battambang. They were like giant chrysanthemum blossoms with every petal a different hue. Twelve of them decorated the wall; they must have cost a fortune in construction paper. Childrens’ picture books were scattered on the couch, and a broken crayon lay in an ochre smudge on the carpet. A familiar-looking orange cat lay in front of the television--probably the mouse cop he’d seen in the hall last night. Mouse Cat was off duty, licking its paws. Here he sensed what seemed to be missing in the Lacs’ apartment: a family with a sense of unity, held together by caring and not by force.
             Sam looked around the living room. One thing about the tenements on this street: the layouts were all the same. The kitchen was off to the left of the entrance, with side-by-side windows that offered a view of the back stairs coming down from the upper floors. If Sam stepped through the doorway into the kitchen and looked to the far corner, he would see the back door. Exit to the left, basement stairs to the right. The bathroom and two bedrooms were off the living room. Each apartment took up an entire floor.
             “No, I don’t know him very well,” she said. “His wife comes by once a month to collect rent, and